Most career-advice articles tell you what to put on your CV. This one's about howto phrase what's already there — because the rephrasing is what loses candidates the callback.
1. Self-promotion calibration
- Under-claim cultures (East Asia, South Asia, Eastern Europe, the Nordics, Germany): “Was responsible for the payments team” reads as junior in NYC.
- Over-claim cultures (US, much of South America, much of the Middle East): “Architected our entire data platform” reads as arrogant in Stockholm.
Fix: calibrate to the country.
2. Team-player vs. individual-credit balance
Fix: first person, every time, on the CV. Return to “we” in the interview.
3. The “passionate, hard-working” trap
Fix: replace adjectives with evidence. “Hard working” is empty; “shipped 12 launches across 3 product lines in 2024” says it without using the word.
4. Photo, age, and family information
Germany / Netherlands (sometimes) / South America: include. US / UK: never.
Fix: two CV files. Ten minutes once, pays forever.
5. Education emphasis
India, China, France, parts of Eastern Europe weight university name + GPA heavily. US/UK: less so after first job.
Fix: drop secondary school after your first full-time job. Drop GPA after 5 years of experience unless outstanding.
6. Hobbies and interests
Germany, France, Spain, parts of South America: normal. US: waste of space. UK: optional, only if differentiating.
The meta-fix: write your CV to one country at a time
The single biggest mistake we see is candidates trying to write a single “international CV” that works everywhere. It doesn't exist.
That's a lot of rewriting by hand. ImproveCV automates it: score your CV against an actual job description, get the country-tuned rewrite, and download the version that matches the convention. Start at improvecv.pro/start.